Illusive
by adii1201
Summary: Tom needs someone to open his eyes to so many things.


**Disclaimer:** I don't even know what's going on the show, I can't claim rights to it.

**A/n:** You know I have time if I write an update and a one shot at the same week! This was mainly something I thought about during class, while I was suppose to listen, but thought Lynette and Tom were by far more interesting! So please forgive me, I'm not sure it has anything to do with reality, but I just really wanted to write it. This has nothing to do with what's happening on the show, except for the characters that are currently there. Like I said, I'm not watching so I don't really know anything.

Please let me know what you think about this one!

-Adi.

_Illusive_

It was probably after midnight when he heard the knock on his door. He was alone, Jane had a night shift at the hospital, and he was sound asleep. At this hour, it could only be Lynette and it could only mean bad news. He groaned, kicked the blanket off of him and hurried to the door.

"_I need to talk to you"_ Renee said before he even greeted her, before he had any chance of asking her why is she here at that hour.

"_Now?"_ He grumbled. _"It's after midnight! I'm sleeping!"_.

"_Yeah, well, when you're not sleeping you're either at work or with Jane, so yeah, now."_

He sighed. She was right. Inappropriate, but right. To avoid thinking about the fact that his time with his kids was now limited, that the routine of his life changed in a split of a second, he filled his schedule with work and meetings with Jane. He failed to notice, that by now even the time he did have with his kids, he spent with Jane as well.

"_So what is it?"_

"_Look, I'm not here to judge, and I'm not here to tell you what I think about all of this. I am here to tell you you can't do this to her anymore"._

Tom stared. He knew she's talking about Lynette but he really wasn't in the mood for guessing what it is that he's doing wrong now. _"What do you mean?"_

"_You have to decide. It's Jane, or for that matter any other woman, or it's Lynette. If you plan to date Jane, move in with her and spend the rest of your life with her, so be it. And even if you plan to replace Jane with the next random woman you meet that you think will fill in Lynette's blank, so be it as well. But if you plan to end up at Lynette's door step at some point, do it now. She's waiting for you. Only you. If you won't let her go, let her know that this is over, that there's no chance for you two anymore, she might be able to move on. Because right now she's stuck on you. And I know you found someone to move on with, and I honestly don't know how you do it if you claim to still love her, but she can't. She met a guy but she never went through with it because she loves you. And I think that you owe her just this much, letting her know just where you two stand"._

In Tom's mind Renee was wrong. Because he wanted to hang on to the fact that even if he still loves Lynette, it's her turn to show him how much, and he may date Jane, but the fact that she was alone only served in boosting up his ego, in making him finally, as he said, see what he really means to her. But deep down he knew Renee was right. The problem they had, that brought them to where they are, had nothing to do with trust or love or how much they mean to each other. He never came to doubt it, probably until the moment she told him she was relieved that he left. That's when he thought that maybe all the fights they had came from a place where Lynette didn't love him anymore. And ever since he left, he's been telling himself just that, to the point he's now believing only that. But if he looked deeper, in those nights that he couldn't sleep and the memory of her crept to his mind, he knew love was never the question. And he probably didn't even think it through before admitting out loud to Renee that he has no plans to end up with someone else but Lynette. And even though that admission felt familiar and right, it came with the reservation that they still had so many problems to solve, so man issues to work through. That Lynette had to change before they even began talking about getting back together.

"_Tom Lynette had changed. She changed to much, she's not the woman you left. Look at her, you're dating Jane and she's done nothing to break you two apart; She's no longer yelling, no longer trying to control you; She's given you complete freedom to be what you want, where you want and how you want, all for the promise of you coming back to her. Sometimes I still catch a glimpse of who she used to be, but mainly, she turned into something weak and fragile, because she can't fight something when the price of losing is too high. And I was like that with Doug, I spent my days thinking of ways I can change to have him back, to have him want me. Truth is, if he hadn't kicked me out I would still be with him, in spite of everything. And I see Lynette doing the same things I did and I don't want your story to end like mine. Because she changed for you, and if you're never coming back, and if you can't see it and appreciate it, then she needs to know. Don't leave her waiting for you forever, because she will"._

He tossed and turned for most of the night, before he gave up on sleep and turned on the lights in his room. He wanted nothing more than to erase Renee's words, because it was so much easier pretending that they have problems bigger than the fact that he simply couldn't bring himself to ask her to move back in. Truth was that he wanted to do it a long time ago. But then he met Jane and she was a great excuse to not going back to Lynette, and it didn't even matter how wrong it felt. And Jane was everything Lynette wasn't. She was everything his girlfriends before he met Lynette were. At some point he found himself laughing at the irony of him going back to his old self, where he never saw himself getting married.

It was hours later, when he went back home that night to find Jane reading on the couch at his place, that he decided there's nothing he wants more than to go back to his old house, to find his wife, the one that would do anything for him, sitting, in some sort of casualty, and reading. It was her he wanted to greet with a kiss. And she was the only one he could whisper _'I love you'_ right before he's falling asleep. And sleep was never as good as when he had her in his arms.


End file.
